DIY Pallet Garden

When we decided to move to Louisiana, there was one word on both of our minds: LAND! We were so done with living in apartment complexes. While what we really want is to buy a house, renting one will have to be the first step towards home ownership.

Before moving here, I had been doing everything from window boxes to a fire escape garden (which I’m pretty sure was illegal) to container gardening in my parking lot. While I was so proud of my urban gardens, I was dying to have the space for something bigger.

In this house, we finally have an area that gets some good sun. The dirt quality is another story which is why we decided to build a raised bed. The first step of this process involved researching for the type of bed we wanted to build. I used this picture from Studio Blog as inspiration:I loved the deepness with the pallets. This garden was split into two sections, one for compost and the other for potatoes with a hanging portion for more vegetables. For any project we do, we always start by looking around the house for materials before we buy anything. In the shed out back, there were a bunch of old doors, and, with construction going on across the street, we had our pick of pallets. We decided to cut a pallet in half and use two doors as the foundation for our raised bed.

I knew that I wanted to plant potatoes and I didn’t want to have to dig up the whole bed to find them in the fall, so we decided to use a divider. On one side we will have tomatoes, peppers and herbs. On the other side, potatoes, garlic, and onions. Eventually, we want to have a composting area, but for now that is relegated to a small container out back (if anyone has composting advice, it would be much appreciated! Currently, we are just piling up kitchen scraps in the back yard).

We used leaves as filler since these beds were so deep. Then we mixed four parts compost with two parts gardening soil and filled up one side of the bed. The plants seem happy and we will see how it goes. So that’s where we are so far. Tomatoes, oregano, and basil are planted and thriving. The peppers we have are still too small to go into the ground, so those will have to wait. We put in a quickly assembled net contraption to keep wild cats and squirrels out of our plants. This needs some attention later on, but for now, it’s doing the job. Next step, fill in the other side of the bed and plant some potatoes, onions and garlic!